Contextual Theology As Somewhat Overlapping with Liberation Theology

4 Gender, ethnicity, and lived religion Challenges to contextual and liberation theologies Elina Vuola My long-term interest in and interaction with liberation theology and feminist theology has primarily focused on some theoretical and practical limita- tions in Latin American liberation theology from the perspective of feminist theology, and vice versa.1 Latin American feminist theology is not as known as it should be, either by feminist theologians from the Global North or by liberation theologians and feminist scholars from other fields in Latin America. At the same time, it is important to tell the narrative of feminist theology as a global, ecumenical, and interfaith movement.2 Since my early critique of the lack of sexual ethical thinking and practice in Latin American liberation theology, the situation has somewhat changed. While early Latin American feminist liberation theology did not engage with sexual ethics – especially Catholic sexual ethics – younger scholars have indeed taken up the challenge.3 Another research interest of mine has been the creation of more dialogue between feminist theology and gender studies in other fields. The problem of much of feminist theorising, in Latin America and elsewhere, has been a superficial and often non-existent interaction with and lack of knowledge of gender studies of religion, including feminist theology. In fact, feminist theology has been a ground-breaking field within gender studies in engaging with women and feminist thought of the Global South.4 Thus, the development and contemporary situation of global feminist theology looks somewhat different when analysed internally as a theological endeavour, on the one hand, and when analysed in relation to the broader development of gender theorising, on the other hand. This interdisciplinary challenge is still at the heart of any coherent understanding of liberation theology, globally and in all its forms, which includes feminist theologies and, to some extent, contextual theologies. In this chapter, I will continue from my earlier research by asking what the pressing challenges of liberation and contextual theologies are today. I rely on my earlier research, aiming to discuss it in the context of this book. My aim is primarily theoretical. By that, I do not mean a juxtaposition of theory and practice. Rather, I ask what some contemporary theoretical developments in the study of religion and other fields relevant to liberation Gender, ethnicity, and lived religion 57 theologies would mean for the development of a liberation (contextual) theology, which does not have women, indigenous people, and other groups at the margins of critical theological thought. Obviously, this means also clarifying the relationship between liberation theologies, contextual theologies, and feminist theologies. For example, is gender a “context”? How are gender issues related to “culture”? How much has the expansion of subjects in liberation and contextual theologies really affected them – or has it? One possibility for thinking about these questions is the perspective of lived religion, which has become a major theoretical way of thinking about what is meant by “religion” and, especially, how to understand it from the perspective of marginalised and subjugated groups of people. To sustain my more theoretical perspectives I will offer empirical examples from my own research on the meaning of the Virgin Mary for women in two different cultural and religious contexts (Costa Rica and Finland; Catholi- cism and Orthodoxy), on the one hand, and my ethnographic work among the Finnish Skolt Sámi, on the other hand. These two empirical works are related: my interest in both has been to expand the notions of the meaning of religious traditions for people (women, and ethnic and racial minorities) who have not been considered as theological subjects in their own right even in most liberation and contextual theologies. Further, research on indigenous people and their religious traditions, including various branches of Christianity, has usually not been linked to theological issues or theology as a discipline – possibly with the exception of missiology and mission studies, but certainly in the case of liberation, contextual, and feminist theologies. Finally, in order for any theology to be “global”, it is important to draw from different cultural contexts, from both the Global South and the Global North. Neither is monolithic, or culturally or religiously singular, and in both, it is women who struggle to be recognised as subjects, including theologically. Lived religion and liberation theologies During recent decades, the perspective of lived religion has been influential in the study of religion, especially sociology of religion. Scholars of lived religion have focused on ordinary (lay) people and their ways of being religious and practising religion.5 Some of these scholars use the term everyday religion (Ammerman) or vernacular religion (Primiano).6 These terms are not entirely overlapping, but they share an interest in the ordinary, the margins, the everyday, and the material, and most of them also in gender. The different uses of the term reflect disciplinary differences: for example, Primi- ano is a folklorist, Ammerman a sociologist of religion, and Orsi a historian of religion. Methodologically, empirical work is at the heart of lived religion. At the same time, ethnographic work among ordinary people stresses their agency, instead of them being passive objects of religious knowledge and guidance from above. 58 Elina Vuola Nancy T. Ammerman has written a (self-)critical evaluation of the history and contents of lived religion.7 According to her, scholarship on lived religion has tended to focus too narrowly on certain geographical and cultural areas (mainly the United States) and religious traditions. Most of the publications on lived religion are written in English. The initial tendency of scholarship of lived religion to focus on the ordinary, the lived, instead of the official and institutional, has also led to an unnecessary binary between the institutional and the lived. In most religious traditions, especially in the Abrahamic religions, religion is lived at the intersection of these. Written texts, their interpretation into doctrines, and how those affect the institutional are part of the lived experience and practice of the ordinary faithful, even when this relationship can be – and often is – contested. Liberation and feminist theologies, in my judgement, are good examples of how traditions, texts, and institutions are challenged and changed from the bottom up, even when the formulation of this critique is done primarily by academic theologians. The institutional and the doctrinal, too, are “lived”. This is not usually taken into account in the scholarship of lived religion – one reason being its meagre dialogue with theology and theologians.8 The challenge of liberation theologies is both theoretical and practical, even political. The self-understanding of all liberation theologies has been that liberation theology is “lived”; it stems from real circumstances of marginalisation and outright oppression. The liberation theological theoretical critique has challenged Euro- and androcentric interpretations of theology and their relationship to issues of power. As a result, contemporary theology and its repercussions in religious institutions and doctrines have been changed because of this critique – even if not enough. For example, the feminist critique of Christianity has been both theoretical and practical: explaining and questioning the image of women in the history, authoritative texts, and doctrine of Christianity, but also demanding concrete changes in the exclusion and marginalisation of women in Christian churches. This feminist rewriting of Christian theology has been influential in all Christian churches, but it is primarily some Protestant churches which have been will- ing to draw practical consequences of it, whether in the area of ethics or priesthood. Thus, various liberation theologies have also had an impact on the institutional and doctrinal. This is true also of the Catholic Church, although it has been – and still is – surprisingly resistant to feminist theology, in spite of the fact that most important feminist theologians are Catholic. It is important to pay attention to this influence of liberation theologies, because it highlights how institutions and the official are never entirely separated from the lived, the everyday, and the cultural, or from issues of power. In textual religions, such as Christianity, changes in doctrine and interpretation of sacred texts are of direct practical importance, especially for people who have been excluded from positions of authority and right to interpretation. Feminist theology, probably more than any other form of liberation Gender, ethnicity, and lived religion 59 theology, has challenged traditional theology due to the simple fact that women are half of humanity and they have been the primary objects of gen- dered religious restrictions and teachings, even on issues which are relevant only for them, such as motherhood, pregnancy, and menstruation. Both “the lived” and the doctrinal and institutional change, even if slowly, when tradition is reinterpreted and challenged by women. A further potential restriction of the lived religion approach lies in its focus on the individual. This focus on individual people’s thoughts, prac- tices, and

Load more